The third meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Sharad Pawar on the national pharmaceutical policy will be held on November 2, amid rising hopes of an early finalisation of the much-delayed document.

Though the agenda for the meeting is still being finalised, sources said, the seven-panel will have some `crucial' discussions as a series of meetings have been held in the recent days, after the second meeting on September 12. Still with little consensus evolved among the members of the panel or outside, it is unlikely that the policy would be cleared soon.

The GoM, which heard the views of the industry representatives at the last meeting, would further discuss on the industry inputs. The Ministerial panel is also likely to go through the observations of some non-governmental organisations, with a view of involving all stakeholders in the policymaking process. Because, the public interest groups in the country have been arguing for total price control while the industry was opposing the move to cover 354 drugs under the price control mechanism.

Industry bodies and public interest groups expressed hopes of early finalisation of the much-awaited policy as the meeting is being held without much delay compared to the long gap between the first and the second meetings. Though things looked better on the political arena, still the clouds of midterm polls hovering have given some urgency to the issue.

However sources close to the GoM said that it was unlikely that the current meeting would be the final and the policy would be cleared by the panel this time.

At the second meeting, the major industry associations representing IPA secretary general DG Shah and Ranbaxy chairman Malvender Singh for the CII made presentations which preferred price monitoring mechanism instead of price control.

After the criticisms that SSIs and other stakeholders were left out in the process, Pawar had received a number of representations and held meetings with many groups to take their views.

In November last year, the ministry of chemicals had sent the draft pharma policy to the Cabinet which increased the span of control on 354 essential medicines, besides the existing 74 drugs under DPCO, 1995. And in January, the Prime Minister constituted the GoM which held its first meeting on April 10.